FROM THREAT TO PARTNERSHIP: HOW MY VIEW OF PEOS EVOLVED AS AN HR PROFESSIONAL

I fell in love with human resources (HR) before ever stepping into a full-time career role. It began with a summer internship in the HR department at JPMorgan Chase when I was in high school. My days were spent updating records, filing paperwork and listening to how HR professionals supported employees during pivotal moments in their careers. HR wasn’t just about processes. It was about people and being a consistent, trusted voice in the midst of change. I was hooked.

My first full-time role came right after college, when I joined a fast-growing tech firm in Dunwoody, Georgia in the fall of 2000. It was a startup through and through: meals and snacks delivered by Webvan, foosball tables in the breakroom and free Costco memberships. It felt exciting and full of possibility.

The company was global, which brought a whole new level of complexity. Between international relocations, cultural nuances and compliance challenges, there was always something new to learn. Onboarding often meant sitting with employees to explain how U.S. benefits worked, especially for those who had recently relocated. It was real HR work in all its messy, meaningful glory.

I understood the importance of things like payroll, compliance and reporting, and there was a sense of pride felt in maintaining our HRIS platform, managing data and keeping the operation running smoothly. But what I loved most was the people. I took genuine joy in helping employees navigate their jobs and experiences at work. Whether organizing a team offsite, coaching a new manager through their first review cycle or being the person someone confided in during a tough time, I believed deeply in the idea that if you take care of the people, they will take care of the clients.

Then the dot-com crash happened. Our team was reduced from three to two, but the workload didn’t shrink. If anything, it got bigger, and everyone was stretched thin. That’s when someone suggested we speak with a PEO to help relieve some of the administrative burden. I remember that meeting vividly. The rep, cheerful and confident, said, “With a PEO, you don’t need HR.” I was floored. Was he really suggesting that the very people who held the culture together, stayed late, handled the hard conversations and supported employees through one of the most uncertain times in their careers were no longer necessary? The very people he was presenting to? We politely declined. At the time, it felt like a threat to the work we performed than a resource.

For years, that experience shaped my perception of PEOs. I saw them as transactional and impersonal models that didn’t understand the value of HR. But nearly two decades later, my perspective changed.

In 2017, I was brought in as a consultant to work with a large, national PEO that had recently acquired several other PEOs. My job was to help them streamline and strengthen their voluntary and ancillary benefits offerings across the newly merged organization. As I worked with the PEO and their clients, I started seeing PEOs very differently.

The PEO wasn’t replacing HR. It was supporting it. Their client-facing team worked directly with in-house HR contacts, and what I saw was a real partnership, which allowed the internal HR professionals to focus on higher-impact work while the PEO handled the heavy operational lift: payroll, benefits administration, tax filings, onboarding logistics, compliance tracking. The HR team was still very much in the driver’s seat. They were empowered, not eclipsed, and now they had the capacity to focus on engagement, retention, development and culture – the work that really moved the needle for employees.

That project was a turning point. I saw how the PEO model had evolved. It wasn’t about removing HR anymore; it was about reinforcing it. Then COVID hit and that evolution became even clearer. PEOs sprung into action to help clients navigate constantly shifting regulations, extend benefit coverage for furloughed workers and roll out mental health and caregiver support services during a time employees needed them most. Not only had the talk track evolved, but the functionality had also. The best PEOs today understand great HR teams don’t need to be replaced, they need support. Partnering with a PEO gives those teams the tools and bandwidth to do their highest-value work.

When you’re no longer bogged down by time-consuming transactional tasks, you can do the work that makes people feel connected and supported in the workplace. You can build thoughtful training programs, create clear development pathways and foster a sense of belonging. You can make onboarding feel like a genuine welcome instead of a compliance checklist. You can have the time to sit with someone going through a personal or professional challenge and really be present. These things matter because they shape the employee experience, and when the employee experience is strong, the organization thrives.

So today, when I hear someone say, “We already have HR,” my response is: Exactly. That’s why a PEO makes sense. Because having HR means they already have people who are passionate about supporting their workforce. A PEO doesn’t take this away, it gives HR professionals the space to perform their tasks even better. It clears the deck so HR leaders can focus on people, not paperwork. Culture, not compliance. Impact, not just intake.

What started out as a threat has become a tool I now recommend often with confidence because HR is at its best when it’s given room to lead. If you take care of your people, they will take care of clients, the business. And the right PEO can help make this happen.